Friday, October 10, 2008

Kiss my asset

Jake and Dinos Chapman, from Frieze Art Fair, 2007

The relationship between artists and their patrons is never straightforward. The money gets in the way. And beyond the "owning a piece of you"/"biting the hand that feeds" patron/artist conundrum, there's the sheer incommensurability of the life choices involved. In his review of Marjorie Garber's just-published study of arts patronage, Patronizing the Arts, Joseph Epstein puts it like this:

When patron meets artist, artist patron, what does each think? Does the patron, if only to himself, ask, "If you're so smart, how come you're not rich?" And does the artist, in his turn, ask, "If you're so rich, how come you're not smart?"

And in another piece of recent art-and-money news, I note that InTrade, a Dublin-based trading exchange, has launched the world's first futures contracts based on the price of the art market. If the credit crunch hasn't left you completely strapped, you can bet your small change on the rise or fall of the global art market using the Mei Moses Art Index as a basis -- without even having to go to the bother of collecting the pesky art yourself. The Financial Times comments that "the move is part of a trend for art to be viewed as an asset class, with the development of art funds and art prices indices."

Chad Rigetti, vicepresident of business development at Intrade, said: "The idea to create a price-transparent, liquid tradable art-based derivative occurred to me after reading about hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin's purchase of Jasper Johns' 'False Start' for $80m in the fall of 2006 . . . Creating a product that would bridge two circles - collectors and financiers - seemed obvious."

1 comment:

Intrade's art futures based on the mei moses all art index offers a unique new way to veiw art. Art has long been viewed as an investment and especially with the current financial crisis perhaps many rich people out there have withdrawn their cash and bought some art in the hope to sell it on when the markets return to form and reinvest it or perhaps hold on to it for longer watching the value increase. It'll be interesting to see how this market performs on the prediction market website.